Gert Kuiper was in a bar in Madrid when a newscast announced that his brother had been killed while reporting on El Salvador’s civil war.
It was more than 40 years ago, but the memory is still vivid. The next day, he took a train back to the Netherlands. Every newspaper he saw carried a story about the death of his older brother, Jan, and three other Dutch journalists.
“It felt like a movie. It didn’t feel real,” Gert Kuiper told VOA. “Could this be my brother in this newspaper? Of course, I knew.”
Jan Kuiper had been working on a documentary with the other journalists for the Dutch television station IKON. They were killed on March 17, 1982.
In the years since, legal barriers have prevented accountability. The case underscores both the pervasive nature of impunity in journalist killings around the world and how El Salvador has struggled to grapple with the aftermath of a civil war that lasted from 1979 to 1992.
FILE - Gert Kuiper, brother of Jan Kuiper, one of four Dutch journalists killed in 1982, speaks during a news conference in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 17, 2022.
FILE - Gert Kuiper, brother of Jan Kuiper, one of four Dutch journalists killed in 1982, speaks during a news conference in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 17, 2022.
But now, at 71 years old, Kuiper is closer than ever to achieving what he has long wanted: justice.
In October, Kuiper filed a civil lawsuit against a former Salvadoran military officer named Reyes Mena, whom a United Nations truth commission says orchestrated the killing of the four reporters.
Now 85, Mena has lived in the United States for decades. A district court in Alexandria, Virginia, is deciding whether Kuiper’s lawsuit will go forward.
That lawsuit is running parallel to a criminal prosecution in El Salvador. In that case, Mena, along with a former minister of defense and former director of the treasury police, are being prosecuted for the killings.
A trial date has not yet been set.
Mena’s lawyer did not reply to VOA’s email. VOA was unable to reach the others named in the criminal case for comment.
An estimated 75,000 civilians were killed during El Salvador’s civil war, mainly by U.S.-backed government security forces. Once the war ended, a U.N. truth commission was formed to investigate.
The killing of the Dutch journalists — Kuiper, plus Koos Koster, Hans ter Laag and Joop Willemsen — is among the cases that the truth commission investigated in depth. It was “among the most emblematic of the civil war in El Salvador,” attorney Daniel McLaughlin told VOA.
FILE - Jan Kuiper, Koos Koster, Joop Willemsen and Hans ter Laag, who were killed in 1982 during the El Salvador civil war, are seen in this undated image published in a San Salvador newspaper March 11, 1982.
FILE - Jan Kuiper, Koos Koster, Joop Willemsen and Hans ter Laag, who were killed in 1982 during the El Salvador civil war, are seen in this undated image published in a San Salvador newspaper March 11, 1982.
McLaughlin works at the California-based rights group the Center for Justice and Accountability, or CJA, which is leading the civil lawsuit in Virginia in partnership with the Washington-based Jenner and Block law firm.
The U.N. commission investigation, which was based on extensive interviews with Salvadorans, concluded in 1993 that Mena was responsible for orchestrating the killings of the journalists.
The journalists were shot dead as they tried to travel to territory controlled by the leftist guerrilla group that was fighting the Salvadoran Security Forces. The truth commission determined that the killings occurred near a military base under Mena’s command.
For many years, Kuiper’s family and others fought for justice, without success.
“I felt a moral obligation at least to try,” Kuiper said. “There was a responsibility on my side that I should not accept so easily the fact that [my brother] was murdered.”
But a law that provided unconditional amnesty for all crimes committed during the civil war stymied any chance of accountability in El Salvador.
After periods of mass violence, governments sometimes enforce blanket amnesty laws that are presented as a way to move on as a nation. But oftentimes they bury the past, experts say, and a lack of justice can prevent populations from fully reckoning with the past.
El Salvador’s Supreme Court struck down the amnesty law as unconstitutional in 2016. The Dutch journalists’ case marks the first time that high-ranking military commanders will be tried for crimes committed during the civil war.
“This case could mean the rupture of historic impunity here in El Salvador,” said Oscar Perez, from Fundacion Comunicandonos rights group in San Salvador. “There is really no demand for truth and justice in other cases.”
Some legal experts told VOA they believe the case has been easier to move forward because the victims are not Salvadorans.
In comparison, justice efforts in the El Mozote massacre — when Salvadoran soldiers in 1981 killed about 1,000 civilians, many of them children — have been stalled for years.
But there is some hope, legal experts say, that the criminal case could open the gates for El Salvador to be able to confront other crimes committed during the war. The aim is that “justice in this case is going to push forward justice in other cases,” CJA attorney Claret Vargas told VOA.
FILE - The memorial "Tulipanes de Esperanza," built as a homage to journalists Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper, Joop Willemsen and Hans ter Laag, near the place where they were killed, is seen in Santa Rita, El Salvador, Oct. 24, 2024.
FILE - The memorial "Tulipanes de Esperanza," built as a homage to journalists Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper, Joop Willemsen and Hans ter Laag, near the place where they were killed, is seen in Santa Rita, El Salvador, Oct. 24, 2024.
Kuiper’s lawyers for the U.S. civil lawsuit say that case is especially important because Mena is unlikely to be extradited to El Salvador for the criminal case, despite an Interpol notice.
“The civil case is an opportunity to set the historical record straight,” McLaughlin said.
The complaint alleges violation of the Torture Victim Protection Act, which allows families of victims of extrajudicial killings committed abroad to seek justice from the perpetrators, as long as they are subject to the jurisdiction of a U.S. court — as is the case with Mena, who has lived in the United States for decades.
El Salvador’s justice ministry, foreign ministry and Washington embassy did not reply to VOA’s emails requesting comment. The U.S. Justice Department also did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.
This case underscores a broader pattern of impunity in journalist killings around the world. Nearly 80% of global journalist killings from the past decade remain unsolved, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ.
“Killing is the most extreme way of silencing a journalist,” CPJ’s Latin America program coordinator Cristina Zahar told VOA.
But no matter how much time has passed, accountability is always worth it, according to Zahar. “When you get justice, even if it’s 40 years after the crime was committed, you’re sending a powerful message,” she said.
The U.S. lawsuit is a civil case, so possible penalties exclude a prison time. But for Kuiper, a confession is what he wants most of all.
“It’s important to fight to the utmost to get an official acknowledgement,” Kuiper said. “I want official acknowledgement of the fact that they were killed intentionally. That’s what I really want.”